I am just starting to consider the idea of adopting internationally. I have been looking at requirements for different countries and it seems many of them only accept people who are infertile or only have 1 child. What is the reason for this? Is it that there are fewer children than people who want to adopt or do they just want the adopted child to be focused on more? Just curious.

Have any of you adopted after having more than 1 biological child? What country did you do? We were looking mostly at Guatemala b/c they don't care about # of children in the home and they are closer than the other countries ( we have travel concerns b/c it it difficult for us to be away too long and I don't want to leave my other 2 behind). But I have heard that they have a huge backlog of adoptions to go through. Also I don't know if I would want to travel there with my kids after reading the travel warnings. Bottom line is, I want to know if there is a country that will allow us to adopt, where we could travel to for a fairly short period of time, and that we would feel safe taking our children along to. I hope I don't offend anyone with these questions, please excuse my naivety. Thanks.

For most countries, there is a waiting list of families who want to adopt, so one way to reduce that pool is restricting the number of families who qualify. That could be because of a shortage of available children, or it could be because the country will not allow an unlimited number of children to be adopted for many reasons.

Number of existing children is just one way of restricting families. Some countries restrict by religion, marital status, sexual orientation, income, length of marriage, age, weight, number of divorces, criminal record, etc.

We adopted from China. China has population control policies which limit family size. Their restrictions for IA are the same as their restrictions for domestic adoption. Other countries feel that children who have already been through a lot deserve to have a lot of parental attention and not have to compete for it with a large number of siblings. There are some people who already have very large families (10+ children) who seek to add even more. Some countries are OK with it, and many are not.

Whatever I might think about those restrictions, I do believe that each country is entirely within their rights to determine who gets to parent their kids.

Travel is not required for Guatemala. You may have your child escorted to the US. If you are willing to adopt an older or special needs child, some countries may be more flexible about the number of existing children in your household.

Hi, This is my first post! We are in the process of adopting from South Korea. I am pretty sure that you can have 3 children at home, more if you go through a waiting child program (special needs children). HTH amy

If you are sure you want to adopt overseas, disregard this - I am not trying to change your mind. But have you thought about adopting in the US? There are no limits on how many kids you can already have, and the travelling is a lot less taxing. We were travelling with a 3 year old when we adopted our daughter, so we were interested in being close to our destination as well.

I came across this chart last night while researching. Although it doesn't list all countries, it does list a few that allow adoption for families with more than 2 kids. I have 3 bio kids, and DH and plan to start the adoption process next winter.

We just adopted from China (just got home 4/29!!) and have 3 bio kids. You do have to travel to China for 2 weeks, but only 1 parent is required to travel. Dh and oldest ds travelled, I stayed home w/little ones.